Grade: B | Genre: Romance Summary: The Notebook isn't afraid to show you the emotion when it's ugly and wrought with pain because it realizes those are the cuts you have to endure to see the beauty.

I have to admit that this film caught me off guard. Honestly, I'd been putting off seeing this film like it was the plague and through my mother's prodding I shuffled my Netflix queue around so I could finally say, "yes I've seen it". The twisted guy that I am, I was almost looking forward to having a nice juicy film to open up both barrels on, blasting the cliches of romance films and the evils of watered down Hollywood box office fodder. Yet here the credits roll and I've got nothing. This was a really enjoyable film that I'm not ashamed to say that I liked. I hear someone pounding at the door to revoke my guy card as we speak.

With that fact established, let's roll out this less than impressive plot. Actually there are two stories running in tandem in a very familiar model. A kind gentleman (Garner) in a nursing home offers to read to a sweet lady (Rowlands) suffering from dementia. The story is of a young couple falling in love back in the 30's. Noah, played by Ryan Gosling (The United States of Leland, Murder by Numbers), is a hard working boy that comes from nothing. He instantly falls for Allie, played by Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls), the daughter of a very well to do family. At first, she wants nothing to do with him, but after he trails her in a way that would get any normal person slapped with a restraining order, Allie lowers her guard to find out Noah is a pretty fun cat. In her life of privilege, she's never danced in the street, much less laid in it to watch the stoplights scroll from red to green. He is her release from the stuffy reality she's known that is entirely predicated on this looking glass into her future.

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So the story is nothing much to speak of. It was good the first time, but once you've mashed it up and churned it out a hundred times, it kind of loses its potency. So what does this film have going for it? It's leads: Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. They are really magnetic and you don't question a single step of this. They verbally spar like prizefighters. Their hands ravage each other like a starving man at Thanksgiving dinner. They are utterly consumed by this love that feels so genuine. I think it was a brilliant move casting these relative newcomers into these roles. We don't have any preconceived notions about them walking in. We could look at them like two complete strangers falling in love instead of what Hollywood starlet they are shacking up with this week or how much better the chemistry was with oh what's his name. They just clicked in a very unconventional way that really fit the societal divide that their characters were forced to straddle.

In short, this film works because it captures the elusiveness of young love. Watching this film brought back the rush of emotions that were so innocent and over powering that you thought they would last forever. It doesn't shield us from the bitterness and the tears that rip you apart and mend you back together; changed yet somehow the same. A lot of romance films just want to gloss on the clear coat, but you can tell there is nothing underneath. The Notebook isn't afraid to show you the emotion when it's ugly and wrought with pain because it realizes those are the cuts you have to endure to see the beauty. I would be remiss if I didn't remind the ladies to make sure their Kleenex box is in fresh supply. I have a feeling you are going to need it.

Buy or rent the Notebook now.